By IANS,
New Delhi/Islamabad : India Tuesday asked Pakistan to tone down
its war rhetoric, and urged it to act against the perpetrators of the Mumbai
mayhem instead. Only this will lead to the resumption of dialogue between
the two, India stressed.
“There is no escalation on India’s part,” Indian External Affairs Minister
Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi while reacting to Pakistan
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s comment asking New Delhi to
“relocate forces to peacetime locations”.
Mukherjee again sought that Pakistan hand over to India fugitives accused of
involvement in terrorist and subversive activities in India. “Act on earlier
evidence. What stops them from handing over Masood Azhar? The hijacking did
not take place in Pakistan. How is the man visible in Pakistan?” Mukherjee
asked.
Maulana Masood Azhar was freed with two other terrorists of Pakistan-based
outfits, who were jailed in India, after an Indian Airlines aircraft was
hijacked from Nepal to Kandahar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in December
1999. The hijackers were Pakistanis, India says. Islamabad denies this.
Indian investigators say Azhar, who later moved to Pakistan and addressed
public meetings there, founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed group that carried out
the audacious attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. Azhar is
among 40 fugitives India wants Pakistan to return so that they could face
trials in Indian courts.
“There has been no escalation on India’s part. De-escalation can only happen
if there were escalation in the first place,” external affairs ministry
spokesperson Vishnu Prakash told IANS when asked about Pakistan’s allegation
about troops build-up on the border.
“The hysteria has been created by our friends in Pakistan,” he said.
“What we want to see is not more talk, but action. The ball is now in
Pakistan’s court,” he replied when asked about Pakistan’s call for resuming
talks to resolve the issues arising out of the Mumbai attacks.
Underlining India’s growing exasperation with Pakistan’s diversionary
tactics, Prakash stressed that the external affairs minister has already
assured that “suitable evidence” will be shared after the probe into the Nov
26 Mumbai attacks is complete.
“It’s not a question of evidence. It’s a question of will,” the spokesperson
said, adding that New Delhi has shared evidence with Islamabad at least 10
times, but nothing was done.
“We have had many rounds of talks but Pakistan has not honoured its pledge
given by its top leaders,” he said and indicated that the resumption of
talks would depend on “meaningful action” by Pakistan against anti-India
terror outfits.
He was alluding to the Jan 6, 2004, and Sep 24, 2008, pledge by Pakistani
leaders that the Pakistani territory would not be used as a launching pad
for terror strikes against India.
The Indian Army also denied there was a build-up of troops on the border and
said the soldiers were only on alert.
A senior Indian Army officer, who said he was reflecting the official
position but could not be identified, said: “We have not deployed any troops
along the border. It was Pakistan that whipped up war rhetoric and not us.”
“Our forces are only on alert so that they can be pressed into operations if
need arises,” the official said when asked about Qureshi asking India to
“de-escalate tensions” in the wake of the Mumbai carnage.
“India should de-activate forward air bases and relocate forces to the
peacetime locations,” Qureshi said on the state-run Pakistan Television
(PTV) Tuesday.
“Positive developments have taken place in the last 48 hours and we welcome
(Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab) Mukherjee’s denial of a war
ultimatum,” he said.
Qureshi said Pakistan would positively take action against those found
involved in terrorism, if evidence was provided against them by the Indian
authorities.
Also on Tuesday, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani
called for the resumption of dialogue between the two nations to resolve
issues arising out of the Mumbai attacks for which India has blamed
Pakistan-based terrorists.
“The media has created unnecessary hype. We have to remove mistrust. We have
to talk to each other,” Durrani told CNN-IBN news channel from Islamabad.
Last week, Pranab Mukherjee cautioned Pakistan against war hysteria and
asked Islamabad to address the key issue of terrorism emanating from
Pakistani territory.
Relations between India and Pakistan went into a tailspin following the Nov
26-29 terror strikes in Mumbai that left over 170 people dead, including 26
foreigners.
India has been maintaining that the 10 terrorists who ravaged the financial
and entertainment capital of India had come from Pakistan and were members
of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit based in Muridke, near Lahore.